Feeling very depressed and disheartened! Can you actually make a living trading?!!

[spanish89]

Aloha people, i dont know why, but i am just feeling very very depressed and disallusioned about how much of a real life career trading can actually be.

I gave up going into a career in the police to become a trader fulltime, but now ive been trading (demoing now) for over 1month i just dont feel that the small little guy can actually make a secure stable living off just being a self-employed spreadbetter trader!


I made almost 600pips last week using my demo account, however i know that if it was my real money i wouldn't have taken those risks of holding for so long, even though i had actually used S&R lines, trend.. ect so was actually using a real method not jut gambling and guessing.

And even if i wanted to i simply wouldn't be able to risk a hundred quid+ on 1 trade!!


At the moment i feel you can only actually make a living of trading if you already have a few thousand pound just sitting around spare...,
but until you are already 'rich' you cant become a trader.

 

[atrim]

I'm a newbie and also trying to figure out my way. I'm interested in your comments on Money. Everything I have read about Money Management advises 2 - 3% of total capital per trade. For simplicity lets say you are betting 5% per trade and you make 5 trades per week. Lets also say that you have a success rate of 80%. So 4 out of your 5 trades will be profitable and lets say that profit when succesful is equal to your stake. OK so with all these guesses out of the way then lets say you want to make £100 per week from your trading or £1000 the number is not really important. One trade will fail so you need to make your profit of 133% from 4 trades or 33% from each trade. So if your target profit per week is £100 you need to be betting £33 per trade and this needs to be 5% of your capital so you need capital of £666. If you want to make profit per week of £500 then you need £3333 and so on. Now this assumes 5 trades per week, 4 out of 5 are succesful and profit is equal to risk [1:1].

Is that clear [assuming its all correct btw!]?

 

[Chorlton]

I gave up going into a career in the police to become a trader fulltime, but now ive been trading (demoing now) for over 1month i just dont feel that the small little guy can actually make a secure stable living off just being a self-employed spreadbetter trader!

Why would you give up a full-time profession (or the possibility of one) without first knowing that you could make a living from it? Surely, it would be better to continue with your career aspirations while trading part-time until you are confident of making it as a Trader?

I made almost 600pips last week using my demo account, however i know that if it was my real money i wouldn't have taken those risks of holding for so long, even though i had actually used S&R lines, trend.. ect so was actually using a real method not jut gambling and guessing.

Do you have a Trading Plan? If so, you should follow it WITHOUT question unless it contains some form of discretionary element and even then, how you deal with this should be clearly defined beforehand. Trading on a DEMO account / Paper Trading is only of any real use if you treat it as a REAL trade using REAL money with REAL Risk.

And even if i wanted to i simply wouldn't be able to risk a hundred quid+ on 1 trade!!

From what I have learned, one of the biggest reasons Traders lose in the Mrkts is because then are under-capitalised....


All IMO,

Chorlton

 

[gamma]

Hello atrim and spanish,
I see a lot of posts here which talk about Not risking over a certain amount and how much you should make a week etc A whole load of rubbish in my opinion I know even a small account with a 1000 pounds in it is enough to start trading with I know this is true as that is what I started with but let me warn you that it takes time, effort and commitment if you like p.m me and I will try to help you.

Good Luck

 

[trader_dante]

"i know that if it was my real money i wouldn't have taken those risks of holding for so long"

"And even if i wanted to i simply wouldn't be able to risk a hundred quid+ on 1 trade!!"

These two lines you wrote are your key problems right now.

The first shows you are afraid to leave money on the table.

The second shows you are afraid to lose full stop.

You cannot trade successfully whilst you have fear.

To answer your original question: I personally believe that you can't make a living trading from home unless you have a siginificant amount of starting capital. (£10k seems reasonable) However, I believe you CAN get a significant amount of starting capital from next to nothing if you are patient and trade well. The reason I believe it is because I have done it.

If you want to succeed Spanish89 you need to do two things.

1. Get a means of income so that you do NOT have to rely on trading.

2. Stop day trading (even on demo) and start trading off of the longer term timeframes. Start with daily and then move down to 1hr. I don't know why everyone is so fascinated by day trading. If you can get the right mentality (patience and discipline) it is so much easier to make money on the higher timeframes that you will never want or need to go lower.

Aloha people, i dont know why, but i am just feeling very very depressed and disallusioned about how much of a real life career trading can actually be.

I gave up going into a career in the police to become a trader fulltime, but now ive been trading (demoing now) for over 1month i just dont feel that the small little guy can actually make a secure stable living off just being a self-employed spreadbetter trader!


I made almost 600pips last week using my demo account, however i know that if it was my real money i wouldn't have taken those risks of holding for so long, even though i had actually used S&R lines, trend.. ect so was actually using a real method not jut gambling and guessing.

And even if i wanted to i simply wouldn't be able to risk a hundred quid+ on 1 trade!!


At the moment i feel you can only actually make a living of trading if you already have a few thousand pound just sitting around spare...,
but until you are already 'rich' you cant become a trader.

 

[Nut]

Aloha people, i dont know why, but i am just feeling very very depressed and disallusioned about how much of a real life career trading can actually be.

I gave up going into a career in the police to become a trader fulltime, but now ive been trading (demoing now) for over 1month i just dont feel that the small little guy can actually make a secure stable living off just being a self-employed spreadbetter trader!


I made almost 600pips last week using my demo account, however i know that if it was my real money i wouldn't have taken those risks of holding for so long, even though i had actually used S&R lines, trend.. ect so was actually using a real method not jut gambling and guessing.

And even if i wanted to i simply wouldn't be able to risk a hundred quid+ on 1 trade!!


At the moment i feel you can only actually make a living of trading if you already have a few thousand pound just sitting around spare...,
but until you are already 'rich' you cant become a trader.

So spanish89 now you are making progress and I refer you back to this thread,

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fir...wins-why-i-always-choose-wrong-direction.html

You were given some excellent advice but without being offensive it seems to me you have not implemented any of it.

I very much doubt that a trader exists who has not at some point felt depressed over one thing or another. This happens as reality begins to hit home, it's one of the first lessons and experiences that you had to encounter. Insecurity comes from poor preparation and a lack of knowledge. Fix those problems before you do anything else.

So moving forwards, lets get positive but at the same time lets get real, take the advice given freely and learn

Nut

 

[dbphoenix]

There's one huge problem when starting out - deafness.

That's because 99% of newbies are deaf when they are told by genuine traders the real hard facts that they need to know about trading. First of all they put their hands up in horror, then they give a mouthful to the person who has told them, and then they firmly slap their hands over their ears so that they can't hear any more.

And then someone comes along who tells them all the sorts of things they want to hear. Wonderful cosy things such as how easy it all is, how it only takes a few hours to master the markets, how money just falls over itself to jump into their accounts, how special software will only select winning stocks, how a newsletter will reveal all the secrets, how there are secret formulae and secret pivot levels which are guaranteed to work, there's a guaranteed money-back offer, etc, etc. They are wooed by these softly spoken people and happily hand over thousands of pounds and wait eagerly with their wheelbarrows to cart off all the promised riches from the market. And they end up having to sell the wheelbarrow to get the bus fare for the trip home.

There are things newbies NEED to know, but these are never the things they WANT to know.

Skimbleshanks

 

[SAINT]

Well said Db. The sooner people realise that this is a tough
endeavour the better. Too many newbies think it's a quick buck game.

Why would you expect to make a full-time living out of anything after 1 months
practice?

 

[shadowninja]

On the plus side, at least he has the balls to admit things aren't working. I'd rather hear Mr Spanish89 come up with this sort of thing than go quiet for a month and then admit that he's lost £2k real money.

 

[jessechan]

one has to learn how to drive before he can steer a car smoothly, for the same analogy, one needs to learn how to trade before he can trade for a living naturally, unfortunately, they both take time and effort

 

[Mathemagician]

It can be done, but not under these conditions.

jj

 

[dbphoenix]

Well said Db. The sooner people realise that this is a tough
endeavour the better. Too many newbies think it's a quick buck game.

Why would you expect to make a full-time living out of anything after 1 months
practice?

Reminds me of a post I read back in 2000: "I've been at this for two whole weeks and I haven't made a dime".

 

[Hoggums]

I'm a newbie and also trying to figure out my way. I'm interested in your comments on Money. Everything I have read about Money Management advises 2 - 3% of total capital per trade. For simplicity lets say you are betting 5% per trade and you make 5 trades per week. Lets also say that you have a success rate of 80%. So 4 out of your 5 trades will be profitable and lets say that profit when succesful is equal to your stake. OK so with all these guesses out of the way then lets say you want to make £100 per week from your trading or £1000 the number is not really important. One trade will fail so you need to make your profit of 133% from 4 trades or 33% from each trade. So if your target profit per week is £100 you need to be betting £33 per trade and this needs to be 5% of your capital so you need capital of £666. If you want to make profit per week of £500 then you need £3333 and so on. Now this assumes 5 trades per week, 4 out of 5 are succesful and profit is equal to risk [1:1].

Is that clear [assuming its all correct btw!]?

This a sure fire way to go bust.

Firstly we are not dealing with a fixed set of parameters here, so making the assumption that if you've had one bad trade the next four will be OK is totally wrong. What happens if you have 2 losers in a row - you've made a loss for the week regardless of the other 3. So you'll start adding more trades to try to recoup your losses and before you know it you are over trading and your account is gone in a week.

You should never make trading plans based so heavily on an expected success rate. trading isn't like Poker where you know what cards are in the pack and therefore what the odds of success for a particular hand are. Imagine playing poker where the dealer randomly changes cards in the pack, all of a sudden you have to estimate odds of a hand winning based on an average of previous hands you've encountered. Trading is the same - there are no certainties.

Also as an aside, an 80% expected win/lose ratio is unrealistically high in my view.

 

[spanish89]

I do understand that i cannot be able to make a fulltime living of trading currently after trading fro only a few months,
so i think some of you misunderstood my actual question when you replied.

I am happy to currently be just practising with my demo account, i do take it seriously, and do try to only make trades that i would make with real money.


And as for being 'scared of losing money, ofcourse i am, just like every single other trader is.
If you were not scared to lose your money then you would just be gambling it all wildly and not caring if you lost it.

So i do not think its true when someone tried to claim they are not 'cautious' of losing their money, however cautious as i am im also very willing to take the risk if i have a clear plan of how im going to achieve my reward with that money.


I lost over £800 in 2weeks, starting with a capital of only £100 eachtime and then just topping it up each time, so i do have the 'guts' to handle losing my money.
(I was just very foolish to use real money (creditcard even) before using demo.


The actual question i was asking now though was 'Can you actually make a living of trading eventually though??
Not now, not in the next few weeks or even few months..,
but in 9months can an ordinary person, go from being a student with a monthly income of between £200 - £300, to actually become sucessful enough and rich enough as a trader to have the financial stability to actually start a 'living' with things such as rent, mortages and cars, based on the income from trading??


Or is it simply just not possible to ever manage to reach taht stage of financial security and be able to actually have decent leverage when trading, if you are starting with a capital of only £200 - £300s??



Do you think you could all and buildup a living for yourself if you gave up all you had apart from your skills, and started trading again with just £250 capital??

 

[dbphoenix]

The actual question i was asking now though was 'Can you actually make a living of trading eventually though??

What part of NOTWITHOUT A PLAN!! do you not understand?

(Could someone try signing this for me?)

 

[trader_dante]

And as for being 'scared of losing money, ofcourse i am, just like every single other trader is.
If you were not scared to lose your money then you would just be gambling it all wildly and not caring if you lost it.

I disagree with you here. I think the best traders are completely unafraid to lose. This means that they view the market totally objectively.

I lost over £800 in 2weeks, starting with a capital of only £100 eachtime and then just topping it up each time, so i do have the 'guts' to handle losing my money.

It is much better to put a lump sum into an account rather than topping it up each time you lose. If you top up, you not only lose sight of how much you are losing overall but if there is next to nothing (£100) waged on each "go" then you are more likely to be reckless.

but in 9months can an ordinary person, go from being a student with a monthly income of between £200 - £300, to actually become sucessful enough and rich enough as a trader to have the financial stability to actually start a 'living' with things such as rent, mortages and cars, based on the income from trading??

I would say that you should put this idea firmly out of your mind. I think it CAN be done but then so can winning the lottery. I think if you start with £250 and you are not day trading (which is likely going to cause you to lose the lot very quickly) then it will take you probably close to 2 years to make the £10k necessary to go full time. And even then, once you have that, you are not SAFE you just have a reasonable CHANCE of making it.

Do you think you could all and buildup a living for yourself if you gave up all you had apart from your skills, and started trading again with just £250 capital??

Yes, without a doubt. But it takes time.

 

[candles]

Doubt you could actually make a living starting with £300. Stake size would have to be very small otherwise a few bad trades and you're wiped out.

Im a beginner aswell (despite my register date)

Open up a demo account with marketindex. I done this yesterday. We can start a thread and post our P&L each day from an account of £300. See how long it takes us to make it dissapear / or get consistant / profitable....

Maybe one of the real traders can join us to see if its possible

 

[trader_dante]

What part of NOTWITHOUT A PLAN!! do you not understand?

(Could someone try signing this for me?)

DB is right Spanish89.

If you don't have the following at a MINIMUM, you don't have a CHANCE:

1. A trading target (What do you want to achieve from your trading - broken down into annual, monthly and weekly and perhaps even daily Targets)

2. A market that you are concentrating on

3. Detailed rules for risk management

4. An edge - An entry setup that offers a statistically valid edge

5. An exit plan

6. A trading philosophy

7. A routine

8. Rules for dealing with market and emotional variables

 

[RedGreenBen]

There's a lot of sense been written in response to this thread, and there is probably no way to say "listen to it for God's sake" without sounding really patronising, so I won't

However, to give a slightly different type of response I'll just tell you my story without any analysis...

(I won't get into a debate about whether any of the following is an advatage or disadvantage when it comes to trading ) but I had 15 years experience in a highly analytical career, I have qualifications coming out of my ears, I have the luxury of time when I don't have to make money, I have a decent amount of capital that I can afford to lose (still hurts though), I have devoted 50 hrs/week to trying to learn to trade and after 10 months...

...I am breaking-even.

 

[Depth Trade]

Spanish, I going to say something I never say.

Quit trading FX and become a Silver or Gold bug. You can do this while having another carreer.

What your going through now is nothing compared to the day when you end up losing your fiance and it will happen if you keep trading FX.

It's not that you won't make it or can't, it's that the learning curve will take 12 years and ruin your wedding and marriage. I have seen it over and over again, it's the most prevelant issue in trading and becoming a trader.

This is coming from someone that was in your exact situation and lost everything. And I mean every last thing.

You will lose your pride and have to crawl into bed completely spent from losing all week, followed up by having to lie to the GF about how the week went.

This place is a complete trap, everything is a mirage. No one is to be trusted.


Here you will lose the wifey and all your money guaranteed.


Trust me when I say this, because I don't talk to many, if you risk your fiance on a trade you are insane and will lose.

Take the job as security and start buying Silver and Gold with your extra cash, you'll be better off then 99% here in 5-20 years.



Trust me on all of this.